Disasters

"A top water expert at Arizona State University began the year with a demand in a newspaper Op-Ed column directed at incoming Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs: Immediately release a state report on groundwater in Buckeye, one of the fastest growing cities in the U.S."

"Natural disasters displaced more than 3 million Americans in 2022, including nearly 1 million in Florida alone, according to data from the U.S. Census Bureau."

"Scott Strickland built his life by the water. The 51-year-old Newfoundland man descended from generations of lighthouse keepers who helped guide sailors safely to Port aux Basques, named for the Basque whalers who sought refuge there five centuries ago."

"You might assume that home prices would decline in an area recently wrecked by a hurricane, but a new study finds the opposite is true, and post-storm price hikes could be a major driver of what’s known as climate gentrification."

"When plague struck black-tailed prairie dogs in the Thunder Basin National Grassland in Wyoming in 2017, a huge die-off followed. It spelled disaster for the burrowing rodents. But for researchers, it provided an opportunity for a “natural experiment” in the consequences of a single species’ collapse."

"Joe McCue thought he had found a desert paradise when he bought one of the new stucco houses sprouting in the granite foothills of Rio Verde, Ariz. There were good schools, mountain views and cactus-spangled hiking trails out the back door. Then the water got cut off."

"Three years of drought have dried up Tunisian reservoirs, threatening harvests that are critical to the North African country's battered economy and pushing the government to raise tap water prices for homes and businesses."

"After recovering from Saddam Hussein’s campaign to drain them, Iraq’s Mesopotamian Marshes are disappearing as a regional drought enters its fourth year and upstream dams cut off water flows. Marsh Arabs, resident for millennia, are leaving, and biodiversity is collapsing."

"The US endured a particularly painful year as communities wrestled with the growing impacts of the climate crisis, with 18 major disasters wreaking havoc across the country as planet-heating emissions continued to climb."